"Tom the Driver" is an album of the only four original songs known to have been recorded by Tom Rauth. Tom had passed away on November 9, 2016 after a long battle with cancer and, despite a prolific lifetime of playing guitar for himself and for those he loved, his family and friends lamented the thought of never hearing his guitar-playing again. He felt no desire to try to be famous or publish anything - he simply loved to play - so it was presumed there were no recordings.
Twenty days later, on November 29, these four songs were discovered on an Olympus VN-6000 digital voice recorder by Tom's son Casey and his wife Cynthia, Casey's stepmom. It was an overwhelmingly emotional moment to hear these for the first time - a bittersweet and relieving realization that his music will carry on with us.
It's not known when exactly these songs were recorded. The "record date" is listed as 8.14'11 for all four songs, but this depends on whether or not the date was set correctly on the recorder to begin with. The names of the songs correspond with the order in which they appear in the digital voice recorder. Serendipitously, they also portray the counting of four beats in one more bar of music. After all, what great performance is complete without an encore?
After the device was discovered, the songs were rerecorded and mastered by guitarist Dave Gellis in his home studio on December 8, 2016. Dave's wife Dana grew up in Belleville, NJ across the street from the Rauths where Tom grew up, and both have remained close friends of the family through the years. Not enough thanks can be given to Dave for his help with this!
Tom was also an avid photographer in his later years. The cover art photo was taken by him while exploring a swamp with a local photography group - it is an abstract self-portrait through a whirlpool.
Enjoy the music, and we miss you, dad.
credits
released December 25, 2017
Written, performed, and recorded by Tom Rauth.
Mastered by Dave Gellis.
Cover photo by Tom Rauth.
Published by Casey Rauth.
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